According to Times of India, an AI-based programme will aid Indian cancer patients who suffer from difficult-to-treat cancer and find ongoing clinical trials helpful. As most patients find it difficult to trust clinical trials, foreign countries help patients in their critical stages access clinical trials. Dr Kumar Prabhash, professor of Tata Memorial, says, “Clinical trials will be the only way to bring treatment to clinics, but in India, we imitate and implement the Western findings”.

A health company named Oncoshot India is reportedly planning to implement clinical trials and make them more accessible for Indian cancer patients. Their AI-based programme will match Indian cancer patients with clinical trials, which is expected to encourage pharmaceutical companies to consider implementing more local trials.

The company has reportedly tied up with five hospitals nationwide, collected data from around 25,000 cancer patients, and made a database. Dr Nilesh Atre of Oncoshot India said, “In the next six months, we plan to tie up with more hospitals to increase our database to 1 lakh.” He opines that, even though the number of cancer patients in India is not as much as it is in first-world countries, the volume of patients is high due to the increased population. He added, “India has the highest population of cancer patients at any given time as estimated as 2 million new cancer cases are detected in India.” 

Vandana Gupta of NGO V Care says as clinical trials are essential for cancer patients, they should be empowered by the benefits and further information, especially the side effects, before the start of trials. Dr Prabhash also reminds us about patients’ expenses when they opt for clinical trials in foreign countries.

A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers mentioned India has approximately 3% of overall clinical trial participation. And also, the study suggests that earlier before, cancer patients in India were actively involved in clinical trials. Still, later reports said patients were not educated on the trial goals, medication or side effects, which shows a lack of awareness. Integration of more hospitals with health companies like Oncoshot and educating people about it will help India overcome this lack of awareness of cancer patients to a great extent.